French Foreign Legion
Page 105
43. Sylvère, Flutsch, 93.
44. SHAT, 3H 148, Trumelet-Faber report, March 1912.
45. Martin, Je suis légionnaire, 106.
46. Moch, La question, 181, 186.
47. Sylvère, Flutsch, 168.
48. SHAT, 3H 148, Trumelet-Faber report, March 1912.
49. Moch, La question, 147-8.
50. d'Esparbès, Les mystères de la Légion étrangère, 36.
51. SHAT, 9N 6, 28 September 1910.
52. SHAT, 9N 6, 24 October 1910.
53. “We scarcely knew them”: Rosen, In the Foreign Legion, 92. “We lived for ourselves, among ourselves, far from our officers who hardly knew us and whom we rarely saw”: Dangy, Moi, légionnaire, 146. “Very rarely did I see Legion officers carry out their duties; they were usually hunting or engaged in sports”: Premschwitz, Mes aventures, 106-7.
54. GM, La Légion étrangère et les troupes coloniales, 89-90.
55. Villebois-Mareuil, “La Légion étrangère,” 885.
56. SHAT, 9N 6, 24 October 1910.
57. SHAT, 3H 148, 25 February 1913.
58. SHAT, 7N 100, 15 April 1902.
59. SHAT, 3H 148, Trumelet-Faber, 25 February 1913.
60. André Raulet, Légion uber alles! Souvenirs de la Légion étrangère (Paris: La-vauzelle, 1934), 10-11.
61. Sylvère, Flutsch, 115.
62. Villebois-Mareuil, “La Légion étrangère,” 886-7.
63. Martyn, Life in the Legion, 32.
64. Rosen, In the Foreign Legion, 207, 254.
65. Sylvère, Flutsch, 54.
66. Sylvère, Flutsch, 115.
67. Le Poer, A Modern Legionary 24.
68. Le Poer, A la Légion, 43, 75-6.
69. Pfirmann, Le sergent Pfirmann, 190-1.
70. Weygand, Légionnaire, 102-3.
71. Sylvère, Flutsch, US.
72. Silbermann, Cinq ans, 6.
73. Béric, Les routiers, 281.
74. Moch, La question, 213-14.
75. Merolli, La grenade, 175.
76. Merolli, La grenade, 214, 216.
77. Sylvère, Flutsch, 244.
78. M.M., Memoirs of the Foreign Legion, 155.
79. Martin, Je suis légionnaire, 228-9.
80. Kellet, Combat Motivation, 134.
81. SHAT, 1H 1015, 15 December 1906.
82. Moch, La question, 131-33.
83. SHAT, 3H 148, 1913.
84. Le Poer, A Modern Legionary, 33-4.
85. Martyn, Life in the Legion, 215.
86. A. Casset, Dans le “Sud Oranais” (Paris: 1911), 55, 58.
87. Sylvère, Flutsch, 160-2.
88. Clément-Grandcourt, “La situation actuelle dans la Légion étrangère,” Bulletin du comité de l'Afrique française, October 1909, 337.
89. SHAT, 3H 23, 11 August 1907.
90. Ehrhart, Mes treize années.
91. Pannier, Trois ans en Indochine, 131.
92. Rollet papers, ALE.
93. Reibell, Le calvaire de Madagascar, 104.
94. Sylvère, Flutsch, 244.
95. Sylvère, Flutsch, 93.
96. Sylvère, Flutsch, 184, 188.
97. S. L. A. Marshal, Men Against Fire (New York: William Morrow, 1947), 60-1.
98. Merolli, La grenade, 214.
99. Merolli, La grenade, 218.
100. SHAT, 9N 6, 28 September 1910.
101. Merolli, La grenade, 34.
102. GM, La Légion étrangère, 67.
103. Béric, Les routiers, 123, 126.
104. Béric, Les routiers, 146.
105. Béric, Les routiers, 150.
106. SHAT, 1H 1015, 12 June 1905.
107. SHAT, 1H 1015, 20 November 1905.
108. Merolli, La grenade, 143.
109. Premschwitz, Mes aventures, 96.
110. Dangy, Moi, Légionnaire, 34.
111. Sylvère, Flutsch, 171. “Buvable,” which is actually a pun on “bearable” and “drinkable.”
112. Pannier, Trois ans, 303.
113. Pannier, Trois ans, 303.
114. Sylvère, Flutsch, 86.
115. L. Wagner, Carnet de route d'un légionnaire au Maroc, 1907-1908 (Casablanca: Imprimeries réunies de la vigie marocaine et du petit marocain, 1938), 114.
116. Sylvère, Flutsch, 169.
117. Dangy, Moi, légionnaire, 88.
118. Des Ecorres, Au pays des étapes, 223.
119. Pannier, Mes trois arts, 74.
120. Roger Cabrol, L'adaptation, 100-1.
121. Martin, Jes suis un légionnaire, 9.
122. Premschwitz, Mes aventures, 49.
123. Sylvère, Flutsch, 171.
124. Rosen, In the Foreign Legion, 59-60.
125. Sylvère, Flutsch, 260.
126. Cooper, Twelve Years, 185-6.
127. Sylvère, Flutsch, 171.
128. Sylvère, Flutsch, 117.
129. Sylvère, Flutsch, 67, 233.
130. Merolli, La grenade, 159.
131. Martin, Je suis un légionnaire, 105-6, 192.
132. Sylvère, Flutsch, 117.
133. Sylvère, Flutsch, 67, 69-70.
134. Dangy, Moi, légionnaire, 64.
135. Béric, Les routiers, 127-9.
136. Premschwitz, Mes aventures, 96.
137. Rosen, In the Foreign Legion, 108-9.
138. SHAT, 3H 148, 19 June 1913.
139. Sylvère, Flutsch, 208, 220.
140. Sylvère, Flutsch, 154-5.
141. Martyn, Life in the Legion, 255.
142. Raoul Brice, Un Lorrain à la légion étrangère (Paris: Edition moderne, nd [1914]), 48.
143. Sylvère, Flutsch, 228.
CHAPTER 15
1. Merolli, La grenade héroique, 165.
2. Based upon Martin, Je suis un légionnaire, 19-28, 31-55.
3. Captain Hélo, L'infanterie montée dans le Sud Algérien et dans le Sahara (Paris: Charles-Lavauzelle, nd [1895]), 7.
4. Armengaud, Le Sud Oranais, 18-21.
5. ALE, report of 12 June 1902.
6. Hélo, L'infanterie montée, 43.
7. Armengaud, Le Sud Oranais, 68.
8. See de Négrier's notes, N 22, Musée de L'Empéri, Salon-de-Provence. Quoted in J.-C. Jauffret and George Gugliotta, Les compagnies montées de la Légion étrangère (Aix-en-Provence: Mémoire de Maîtrise, Institut d'études politiques, Université d'Aix-en-Provence), 29.
9. Hélo, L'infanterie montée, 48.
10. Armengaud, Le Sud Oranais, 75-6.
11. “1882: Le sanglant combat de chott Tigri,” Vert et rouge, no. 25 (1949), 40-3.
12. Captain Maurel, Les compagnies montées du Sud Oranais (Paris: Chapelot, 1913), 13-14.
13. Jauffret and Gugliotta, Les compagnies montées, 32.
14. General Hubert Lyautey, “La Protection du Sud-Oranais,” Revue de Cavalerie, vol. XLIII (April-September 1906), 332-37.
15. Martin, Je suis légionnaire, 122-4.
16. SHAT, 3H 148, “Rapport sur la nécessité de rendre les troupes de la Légion plus mobiles,” 11 February 1913.
17. Langlois, Souvenirs de Madagascar, 46-7.
18. This event is still commemorated by the 2e étranger, to which this mounted company belonged.
19. For a description of the battle, see Douglas Porch, The Conquest of Morocco (New York: Knopf, 1982), 71-3. For tactical criticisms of Vauchez, see SHAT, 1H 1034.
20. Captain Coipel, “Opérations dans le Sud-Oranais en 1903,” Revue militaire generate, 1 February 1908, 205-18.
21. SHAT, 7N 100, Report of General O'Connor, 13 May 1902.
22. Maurel, Les compagnies montées, 38.
23. For a discussion of Lyautey's methods, see Porch, The Conquest of Morocco, 122-36, 183-99. Ross E. Dunn, Resistance in the Desert. Moroccan Responses to French Imperialism, 1881-1912 (London: Croom Helm, and Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 1977), discusses how Lyautey's military and economic policies contributed to the 1908 confrontations.
24. ALE, A 29, report of General B
ailloud to war minister.
25. Les mémoires du sergent Lefèvre à la Légion étrangère, 1907-1909 (unedited manuscript, ALE, no page numbers), portions of which were published in Képi blanc in 1956-57. For the official report of Menabha, see SHAT, 3H 565.
26. “Rapport du Captaine Maury commandment la 24e compagnie du 1er Régiment étranger, sur la part prise par cette unité au Combat de Menabha, le 16 avril 1908,” ALE, A 29,6.
27. Lefèvre, Mémoires.
28. ALE, A 29, Bailloud report.
29. Lefèvre, Mémoires.
30. Lefèvre, Mémoires.
31. Lefèvre, Mémoires. See also SHAT, 3H 565, Journal de marche de la colonne du Haut-Guir; ALE, A 30, report of Colonel Alix.
32. SHAT, 3H 148, “Rapport sur la nécessité de rendre les troupes de la Légion plus mobiles, 11 February 1913.
33. SHAT, 3H 148, “Rapport.”
34. Premschwitz, Mes aventures, 139.
35. SHAT, 7N 100, 13 May 1902.
36. Musée de I'Empéri, Salon-de-Provence, N22, General Herson to colonel of 1er étranger, 13 December 1904.
37. SHAT, 9N 6, 26 September 1910.
38. Lefèvre, Mémoires. 18 September 1908.
39. Cooper, Twelve Years, 95.
40. SHAT, 9N 6, Bailloud report, 24 October 1910.
41. Cabrol, L'adaptation, 77, 86-9, 111.
42. General Daudignac, “La Légion étrangère,” 7.
43. Merolli, La grenade, 105.
44. Junger, Jeux africains, 172.
45. See, for example, Bennett Doty, Legion of the Damned (Garden City, N.Y.: Garden City Publishing Company, 1928), 216. See also Simon Murray, Legionnaire. My Five Years in the French Foreign Legion (New York: Times Books, 1978), 195, 210.
46. SHAT, 9N 6, 26 September 1910.
47. Junger, Jeux africains, 184-5.
48. Sylvère, Le légionnaire Flutsch, 203; Premschwitz, Mes aventures, 103-4.
49. Sylvère, Flutsch, 140-2.
50. Daudignac, “La Légion étrangère,” 11-14. See also Le Petit Parisien and Le Petit Journal, January 1909.
51. Béric claimed that desertion was rarely thought out, but was ignited by a fit of depression, sometimes caused by homosexual love affairs, but more likely during an alcoholic binge (Béric, Les routiers, 128, 280). At other times, a drunk legionnaire might pass out, wake up after the “all in” and, afraid to face punishment, desert. This certainly typified the attitude of Martin who, after drinking all night, calculated that he was bound to receive 15 days in the cells, while the maximum he could get was sixty days if he stayed away for a “five-twenty-three” (5 days, 23 hours), “which means that the longer absence is less expensive” (Martin, Je suis un légionnaire, 230). Merolli was of the opinion that desertions were most numerous in the spring: “It is perhaps the renewal of nature, the blood which flows quicker, more generously in the veins, the great desire for a different life, which pushes men toward le cafard.” But he also cautioned that old soldiers favored the spring because it was easier to find food and work as an agricultural laborer (Merolli, La grenade, 172). In Tonkin, the congaïs were often accused, with some justification, of stimulating desertion.
52. SHAT, 3H 148, 25 February 1913.
53. Pfirmann, Sergeant Pfirmann, 13.
54. SHAT, 9N 6, “2e régiment étranger. Etat numérique des désertions du 1 janvier 1900 au 1 septembre 1910.”
55. Rosen, In the Foreign Legion, 268–73.
56. Sylvère, Flutsch, 187.
57. Junger, Jeux africains, 196–217.
58. Premschwitz, Mes a ventures, 82.
59. Hubert-Jacques, L'Allemagne et al Légion, 61–107.
60. Casset, Dans le “Sud Oranais,” 57, 59.
61. Colonel Xavier Derfner, Les mémoires d'un légionnaire garibaldien (Bordeaux: Impr. Delmas, 1961), 68.
62. Junger, Jeux africains, 213–14.
63. Sylvère, Flutsch, 203.
64. Ditte, Observations sur la guerre, 355. British writer Tony Geraghty attempts to portray Legion desertion as part of a larger problem in the French army in March or Die, 129. In fact, there was no relationship between the two, neither in the perceptions of people at the time nor in reality. Contemporaries charged that the deserters were socialists and pacifists who refused to defend France. However, most of the “desertions” in the French army were reservists who failed to report for their annual training periods, often because they were no longer resident in France. When war broke out in 1914, the number who failed to report was infinitesimal.
65. Comor, L'image de Légion étrangère, 60–71; Erulin, Les nationalités à la Légion étrangère, section 7.
66. SHAT, 3H 77.
67. SHAT, 3H 77, 1 October 1908. See also the report of General d'Amade of the same date, which says desertions number 114. The figure of 30 percent is based upon the strength of the Legion in Casablanca on 21 November 1908 of 707 men.
68. SHAT, 3H 72, letter of 24 November 1907 and subsequent investigation.
69. SHAT, 9N 6, 28 September 1910.
70. SHAT, 9N 6, “Désertions au 1er R.E., 1er janvier—31 aoÛt 1910.” This is contrary to the opinion expressed by Benedittini's captain, who reported in 1907 that “the deserters from the central portion [Saïda] are almost all French, rogues or jail bait” (SHAT, 3H 72). But this report provides no statistics. Nor does it stand to reason, as the problem with the “rogues and jail bait” of French nationality was how to get rid of them, not how to keep them from deserting.
71. SHAT, 3H 77, 1 October 1908. Again, d'Amade gives different statistics on 30 September, but the deserters are overwhelmingly German, with only five French.
72. SHAT, IK 205, Aïn-Sefra, 17–26 July 1910.
73. SHAT, 9N 6, 17 September 1910.
74. Journal de marche du Colonel Met, ALE, no page numbers.
75. SHAT, 9N 6, 26 September 1910.
76. SHAT, 9N 6, “Désertions au 1er R.E... .”
77. SHAT, 9N 6, 24 October 1910.
78. SHAT, 9N 6, note attached to Dautelle report.
79. SHAT, 9N 6, 28 September 1910.
80. SHAT, 7N 100, 15 April 1902. He also wondered how cavalry who spoke no French were to be used effectively as reconnaissance and scouts.
81. SHAT, 9N 6, 28 September 1910.
82. SHAT, 9N 6, 24 October 1910.
83. SHAT, 7N 110, 5 March 1911.
CHAPTER 16
1. Historique du Régiment de marche de la Légion étrangère: 3e régiment étranger d'infanterie (Paris: Berger-Levrault, 1926), 41–3.
2. Captain Camillo Marabini, Les Garibaldiens de l'Argonne (Paris: Payot, 1917), 26–41.
3. M.-C. Poinsot, Les volontaires étrangers enrôlés au service de la France en 1914–1915 (Paris: Berger-Levrault, nd), 12–13.
4. V. Lebedev, Souvenirs d'un volontaire Russe dans I'Armée française (Paris: Librairie académique, 1917), 68–9.
5. Zosa Szajkowski, Jews and the French Foreign Legion (New York: KTAV Publishing House, 1975), 25.
6. Poinsot, Les volontaires, 18–19.
7. Paul Rockwell, American Fighters in the Foreign Legion, 1914–1918 (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1930), 5.
8. Blaise Cendrars, La main coupée (Paris: Folio, 1974), 141. The work was first published by Denoël, Paris, in 1946. An abridged translation in English exists under the title Lice (London: New English Library, 1973).
9. Cendrars, La main coupée, 143–48.
10. Rockwell, Americans, 8.
11. Jean-Jacques Becker, 1914: Comment les français sont entrés dans la guerre (Paris: Presses de la Fondation nationale des sciences politiques, 1977), 574–5, 577.
12. Rockwell, Americans, 6.
13. Poinsot, Les volontaires étrangers, 77. See also Franc-Nohain and Paul Delay, Histoire anecdotique de la guerre de 1914–1915. Fascicule 3, “Les Alsaciens-Lorrains et les étrangers au service de la France” (Paris: Lethielleux, April 1915), 123–34, lists 32, 296 foreigners enlisted between 21 August 1914 and 1 A
pril 1915:
Alsatians-Lorrainers 6,500 Greeks 1,380 Diverse 4,254
Belgians 1,462 Luxemburgers 591 Germans 1,027
British 379 Spanish 969 Austro-Hungarians 1,369
Russians 3,393 Swiss 1,867 Turks 592
Italians 4,913 North Americans 600
Cendrars, La main coupée, 140–1, claims that 88,000 foreigners voluntered in 1914 alone.
14. Lebedev, Souvenirs, 41.
15. Szajkowski, Jews, 30.
16. Erulin, Les nationalités à la Légion étrangère, figures in bibliography.
17. Historique du régiment de marche, 159–162.
18. Erulin, Les nationalités, 2/F. It is possible that there was a slight rise in recruitment in 1917–18. But the way in which Erulin's figures are presented leaves some doubt as to whether she includes the RMLE in the general total or counts that regiment separately.
19. It is, of course, possible that the figure could be higher if one assumes that roughly 2,000 of the 10,521 legionnaires serving in 1913 would be at the end of their enlistment. However, after August 1914, legionnaires from countries at war with France were not released, but offered the choice of internment or reenlistment in the Legion. Also, the figure is close to the 11,854 enlistments “for the duration of the war” that Poinsot claims were officially produced by the ministry at the end of 1914 (Poinsot, Les volontaires étrangers, 77).
20. Cendrars, La main coupée, 141.
21. Szajkowski, Jews, 29.
22. Alan Seeger, Letters and Diary of Alan Seeger (New York: Scribner's, 1917), 141, 144; Henry Farnsworth, Letters of Henry Weston Farnsworth of the Foreign Legion (Boston: privately published, 1916), 177.
23. Lebedev, Souvenirs, 35, 57.
24. Cendrars, La main coupée, 378.
25. Rockwell, Americans, 8–11.
26. Seeger, Letters and Diary, 154.
27. Rockwell, Americans, 10, 60.
28. Rockwell, Americans, 94.
29. Farnsworth, Letters, 94, 99.
30. Cendrars, La main coupée, 31–2.
31. Rockwell, Americans, 54.
32. Szajkowski, Jews, 29.
33. Cendrars, La main coupée, 148.
34. M.M., Memoirs of the Foreign Legion, 106.
35. SHAT, 26N 861.
36. Rockwell, Americans, 13–14.
37. Farnsworth, Letters, 117, 139.
38. Lebedev, Souvenirs, 44, 72.
39. Cendrars, La main coupée, 61, 152.
40. David Wooster King, “L. M. 8046.” An Intimate Story of the Foreign Legion (New York: Duffield, 1927), 18.